


Shiver

by hollowbethy



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 15:01:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8018584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollowbethy/pseuds/hollowbethy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, Jonathan realizes it's all just behind him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shiver

**Author's Note:**

> Did you want me to change?  
> Well I changed for good  
> And I want you to know.  
> That you'll always get your way  
> I wanted to say,
> 
> Don't you Shiver?  
> Don't you Shiver?
> 
>  
> 
> Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8XFFTWwSvY

Grabbing coffee from the small counter, Jonathan leaned while mixing his cup and observing the said photo shoot of his team that has been conducted for this year’s exhibit. This is what he likes most with a lot of schedules that has been enlisted onto his scheduler this year, this is what he writes on his journals (as recommended by his shrink) leaving him relieved on how life can be, by some minutes, substantial to categorize as satisfying. A colleague tapped his shoulder and asked “Are you coming with us tonight? _____ is coming… if you are still interested.”

The signature smirk, eyes looking down before facing someone. Even if he didn’t catch or it was unnecessary to mention a specific person to likely influence his interest towards companying them on whatever they are about to delve into. “I’ll pass, had to visit my mom at the facility this weekend. Don’t want to look messed up this time.”

“She really did—mention? All good then. See you next week for the meeting.”

“Yeah…sure…” another quality he couldn’t quite fathom. The way his voice? His approach? Will always be as distant as perceptible amongst humans he is with. But he’s here. Surrounded by the people who had been working with him and had gone to times of hurdles and surpassed them as they accomplish tasks day by day. He shouldn’t worry about it.

Yet he always does.

He huffs, and drinks on his cup planning on what he’s going to do after this and the work that he calls now as a part-time job, a firing range stall a few blocks away from his home at night shifts, depending on whatever his boss would tell him. He had to pay a visit since the one covering up for him got sick for the upcoming holidays and it will be so much fun to interact to people whom intentions are predictable whenever the chimes ring as the glass door opens. Luckily he’s able to listen to tapes and vinyl all he wants while waiting for customers, and if lucky, he could close the range at an early hour to pass by to his favorite record store to acquire another or rent for the next day.

He longs for the crisp silence of vinyl records could provide, and the tapes he had manually roll back for a replay of his favorite song, otherwise he has to buy the said tape he rented for a mixtape. Songs express themselves, second best to photos that can speak a thousand words unlike a 3000-word essay of nonsense topic that is supposed to be submitted the next day after it is announced. The words rhyming tingles his ears, dancing onto the given beat it provided and how a damp of comprehension it costs, he can almost grasp onto what he might call satisfaction but 13 years have passed and Jonathan hasn’t changed a bit.

Truth number 1, he didn’t get into the university he wanted but not because of financial insufficiencies, whether it was of his compromised mental state, whatsoever, he has acquired a degree enough to work his ass out when he moved out of Indiana. That sufficed him, after all, the world will never be a fair as most of the people think. Talk about being a survivor bias.

Truth number 2, his talents that has been defied from the 1983 occurrences had turned out be his pinnacle of his creative journey. He had been hired in his free time to photoshoots, communicating with new people with the same passion as he is (never knew he would be able to gradually surpass the stage of his life where he had thought that when people talk further, the words they utter loses it’s essence), and being in a community where he is appreciated by just being who he is. Apparently it was one of those things he is always proud to mention to his mother who recently manifested Alzheimer’s.

Truth number 3, he lived in the city that he won’t even mention the name on the telegram or telephone calls from her mother from the recent years he had been there. Eventually her mother persisted to visit on his lonesome apartment he resides and decides to let them stay as long as they want since he was attempting to build a quo long before he permits them to enter into the mix. He just wants to give them a better life they deserve, even if they already lived better than anyone else at Hawkins, it was still as longing as it should be to have one and never to worry any longer.

Truth number 4, he had relationships here and out for the longest time and even almost marrying someone that could’ve been the achievement of his life asides from his reputation to the creative community as a photographer, financing his family and his visits to Hawkins only to see if Hopper’s still hanging or his father persisting about finances at the nursing home.

But he hasn’t changed a bit.

* * *

 

_All he needed was a shower, after the gooey stuff they wrapped around their bodies, all he wanted was one._

_But he just saved Nancy fucking Wheeler from an unknown portal that would probably open horizons to where their loved ones are: Barbara and Will._

_Portal. A word you would only use in arcade game._

_Jonathan kept on looking at her flat expression, either he should be worried or that’s out of his boundaries since Steve is supposed to comfort her, but what they were trying to solve was **presumably** just between the both of them. Whatever she has witnessed though and the gooey stuff that vanished from the said tree where she came out can already be a sign that, he should be worried. Driving all their way to her apartment since his house has been the place where his mother attempting to communicate with Will lamps and Christmas lights he couldn’t quite comprehend, thinking what if this is how she cope up with lose. He has lost a lot of things, like his camera that came with a sentimental value of his trips on the woods contemplating and following animals, missing them one by one as the rain falls. He wished that one day he’ll be able to afford one once again. _

_Already thinking about the remedy of such lost, perhaps it’s innate—_

_“Jonathan.”_

_He flinched, yes they were climbing to her room from the garage at the middle of the night. He could’ve gone home, but his instinct tells him otherwise._

_“Right.”_

_He grasped her offering hand (she was the one who climbed first) entered her dark room. When she rushed to open her lamp, the first thing he saw was the board where the photographs of her and Barbs were. Having fun._

_Will and Jonathan only had a few pictures together, while his brother was enjoying the company of his friends he is used to solitary activities and only share a few interests to Will. One thing for sure they both like music, especially that one specific song that reminds them of a tragic occurrence they remedied with the rhythm they were listening. He wished he could’ve have more, not just photos, but moments with him._

_Nancy sat down at her bed, slowly he approaches, waiting for affirmation of anything that would terminate his approach. But she was in misery, shocked, tainted by fear of what she witnessed. When she closes her delicate eyelids, the spark vanishes, unlike what he first saw when she approached him at the bulletin board posting the Xerox copy of the poster saying Will’s missing. Jonathan started to notice the whole interior of the room: bright. Likewise of what personality she has, with his distant observations of the said woman he has been overhearing: a bright student. Or everyone’s opinion about Nancy Wheeler: nice, proper and intelligent. The beauty and brains so to speak._

_He wasn’t miserable._

_He just…has a different kind approach in things. If he was inside the room without any of those moments they had together for a short time, he would think likewise of what they had argued along the woods before their questions had been answered. She’s pretending to be something she is not._

_Or was he just being harsh to face the truth that he is just, utterly, miserable and only displacing his guilt to the world._

_Well he has the right._

_He wished something was right, like Will returning would give him a certain relief in this unfair world. He grabs a blanket hanging on the bed frame and sat beside her._

_“What did…you saw?” Jonathan grasp on the moment and looked once again to the startled person beside him. She was shivering._

_“I saw a monster.”_

_What’s more strange than a legitimate monster who creates a portal and devour people’s lives for it’s satisfaction? The unwariness his feeling on his stomach that possibly, his brother and even Barbs, may be…_

_“And…it’s dark.”_

_Silence, their eyes, intertwined as ever._

_“What if there—dead?”_

_“They are not.”_

_“Jonathan. Have you ever thought about…it?”_

_He gulps, course he doesn’t want to admit it. But whatever she saw there wasn’t pleasant and would bound someone to think the worst case scenario. Still, he remains hopeful… despite the circumstance._

_“You’re here, for now.”_

_Wrapping around the blanket, hesitating to engulf her with his warmth._

_This will do, the best he could do._

_**_

_Now there was an unshaking sensation building up his stomach that was once again intervened by the attention the girl standing looking at him stunned out of spite._

_“I’m going to take a shower…” Unsetting voice he hears, before she shuts the door their eyes met and a blink queued the shot. Her eyes were still dilated, perhaps terrified, uneasy and seeking for an answer of the insufficiency of the information they have._

_He is here now and he shouldn’t leave, after all, he has to redeem himself. Or was he?_

* * *

 

Jonathan has never communicated with anyone from Hawkins, like mentioned Hopper or his father, and include Will’s friends who had also moved somewhere near the city he lives for college since they all had a scholarships flooding their doorsteps, coincidentally they chose somewhere near the city he lives in. Especially the person whom he used his learned skill back then towards vain, but if that never happened then there won’t be any change in his life except his brother’s death and her friend’s too. What could possibly that has never changed with him was the fact that he has never admitted his feelings towards her, not in a way he’ll be able to utter it to the other person he’s attracted to the person he saved from the hell she went into, comforted from her nightmares and helped her eliminate the monster who killed her friend out of emotional tendencies, but to himself entirely.

Because he thinks he isn’t whole. What could a person full of everything on her bottle need? Someone alike, not an open one that lost its cork and always yanked to spill their contents. Unable to return the fill unless someone has to do it.

A burden. That, he doesn’t want to be.

But that’s all behind him now.

A shutter of a camera was heard not far from his right ear, apparently his 5’oclock while browsing for next day’s listen at the range. Then another, and what could be the last is where he turned his head and how worthwhile it is to have a listen from the store’s radio while seeing who was capturing the moment he is doing.

Truth number 4,

It’s just behind him.

“Jonathan.”

“Nancy?”

 


End file.
